POLITICS-BURUNDI: Resuming Trade With Neighbours

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Judith Achieng'

NAIROBI, Feb 22 1999 (IPS) - The government of president Pierre Buyoya has embarked on a vigorous campaign to win over its neighbours, barely a month after they temporarily agreed to lift economic sanctions imposed on Burundi more than two years ago.

“The government has embarked on a process geared towards the normalisation of regional relations,” says Burundi’s external relations and co-operation minister Severin Mtahomvukiye.

Mtahomvukiye has been meeting Kenyan and Tanzanian officials since the embargo was lifted on Jan 23.

He told journalists in the Kenyan capital of Nairobi last week that Burundi was keen to resume trade with its neighbours.

According to Mtahomvukiye, the embargo has affected the impoverished Central African country’s economy, raising its inflation rate from seven in 1996 to 31 percent in January from the loss of revenue.

Mtahomvukiye said the decision by the countries in the region to suspend the embargo would also enhance the peace talks, brokered by former Tanzanian President Julius Nyerere, between Burundi’s belligerents.

“Our wish to reach a peace accord has greatly been strengthened by the wise decision to suspend the sanctions whose consequences on the daily lives of our people and for the peace process itself are well known to all,” he said.

Burundi government says it is committed to dialogue with its numerous factions of armed rebels and hopes to sign a peace treaty before the end of the year.

The embargo was imposed by Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda, Zambia and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to force Major Buyoya to return Burundi to civilian rule.

Buyoya, a Tutsi, overthrow President Sylvester Ntibantunganya, a Hutu, in July 1996.

Kenya, which was the first to drop its embargo last year, has been the main campaigner to urge the lifting of the sanctions. And, it has since maintained strong bilateral relations with Burundi.

But hardliners, like Tanzania and Uganda, insisted Buyoya meet a number of conditions, before lifting the sanctions.

Burundi argues it has already taken some “far reaching” measures, like the establishment of a government of national unity, the reinstatement of parliament and the opening of talks with rebels, all key conditions demanded for lifting the sanctions.

Despite the lifting of the sanctions, the security situation in Burundi, Mtahomvukiye admitted, has remained fragile.

“Although the security situation has improved, there are still pockets of resistance, occasioned by armed groups, in a few rural areas,” he told journalists in Nairobi last week.

“Our wish is that the armed factions which have not yet joined the Arusha talks be duly invited to join now. In this way they will no longer have any reason to continue the killings and hostilities in Burundi,” he said.

Most of the peace talks have taken place between the government and the main rebel group, the National Council for the Defence of Democracy (CNDD), in the northern Tanzanian resort town of Arusha.

Burundi’s troubles are rooted in the conflict between the minority Tutsis, who make up about 14 percent of the country’s six million population, and the majority Hutu.

More than 200,000 people have been killed in Burundi since the assassination of the country’s first elected Hutu President Melchior Ndadaye by renegade Tutsi soldiers in October 1993.